Two hagiographical texts of the fifth century CE contain stories about demoniacs whose main symptom, excessive and insatiable hunger, was alleviated by the exorcistic cure of a saint.

The first story occurs in a Hymn of 402 by Paulinus, a Gallo-Roman aristocrat who had retreated to a life of ascetic contemplation at Nola in Campania. Paulinus apparently drew on his own experience and observation in narrating the cure of a ravenous demoniac by the long-dead Felix, a saint famous for his post-mortem capacity to heal and exorcize.^[580] The second story is found in the Lausiac History of Palladius, bishop of Helenopolis and then Aspuna in Asia Minor.

This work is a collection of lives of the Egyptian desert fathers presented to the imperial chamberlain Lausus in about 420, apparently drawing on Palladius' earlier tour of the region in the 390s. The cure of the hyper-hungry demoniac is narrated in Palladius' secondhand reportage of the miracles of Macarius of Egypt.^[581]

In both Paulinus' and Palladius' stories about over-eating demoniacs, a man was recognized to be possessed by a demon by multiple factors: the sheer scale of his appetite, the disgusting, transgressive objects of that appetite, and a range of other unnatural physical behaviours and symptoms. Paulinus' demoniac guzzled vast quantities of normal food, live animals, and carrion, and was described as shaking, hiccupping, belching, and foaming at the mouth. Palladius' demoniac gobbled, then belched up and vaporized, vast quantities of bread and water, and was so crazed with hunger that he consumed his own urine and excrement. In both cases, the victims' human selves seem to have been effaced in the experience of demonic takeover, but curative exorcism successfully restored them to health and moderation.

This article will examine Paulinus' and Palladius' anecdotes in turn, focusing on how they depict the relationship between human and demonic selfhood and agency: whose enormous hunger was being exercised in cases of possession, demon or human? What effects did the inhabitation of a demonic body have on a human body? What could be discerned about the type of indwelling demon from the behaviour of a particular demoniac? How responsible was the victim of possession for his state? What cure was provided for the demoniac, and did it focus on curing human host or expelling demonic body? It will also propose that these tales shared similar paraenetic purposes, teaching that spectacular over-eating could have a demonic aetiology.

The emphasis on the connection between greed and demonic activity was particularly associated with the teachings of the ascetic Evagrius of Pontus, who named eight demonic thoughts, logismoi, of which the first and worst was gluttony, gastrimargia.^[582] On Evagrius' account, indulging the sin of gluttony could lead to the experience of a demonic ‘take-over' of the body, and indeed to other vicious activities. In Palladius, and to some extent in Paulinus, the over-eating demoniac might not have been directly or personally responsible for the unfortunate circumstance of being possessed by a demon, but, once possessed, the demonic quality of his excessive greed was an important warning against over-consumption. As such, these stories were vehicles for their authors to promote frugal and modest consumption for the maintenance of human spiritual health.

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Source: Bhayro Siam, Rider Catherine (eds.). Demons and Illness from Antiquity to the Early-Modern Period. Leiden, Boston: Brill,2017. — xiv, 434 p.. 2017

Two hagiographical texts of the fifth century CE contain stories about demo­niacs whose main symptom, excessive and insatiable hunger, was allevi­ated by the exorcistic cure of a saint.

More on the topic Two hagiographical texts of the fifth century CE contain stories about demo­niacs whose main symptom, excessive and insatiable hunger, was allevi­ated by the exorcistic cure of a saint.:

Two hagiographical texts of the fifth century CE contain stories about demoniacs whose main symptom, excessive and insatiable hunger, was alleviated by the exorcistic cure of a saint.

More on the topic Two hagiographical texts of the fifth century CE contain stories about demoniacs whose main symptom, excessive and insatiable hunger, was alleviated by the exorcistic cure of a saint.: